Hey folks, I’m back from a lovely trip down South to see the family. We celebrated belated Christmas, had some seafood, learned about WOOD and WATER, and generally had a pleasant time, but we’ve done this sort of thing numerous times and that not what you’re wanting to hear about. The questions on your mind, I’m betting, are “Did you take the Mackboop?” and “If so, how did it perform?”

If you recall, the Mackboop was purchased for such trips, so this was its first test in the mobile environment. It passed really well, even though I need to get a decent carrying bag for it. It found local wireless networks, I had all my stuff at hand, the battery lasted a decent amount of time, and it wasn’t too much of a problem to tote it around. The weight wasn’t really an issue with the backpack I carried it in so much as the shape.

I forgot to bring headphones, so on the flight down I didn’t use it to watch anything. However, I snagged some cheapies while there, so on the way back I was able to use this feature. The wide screen means that unless the person sitting next to me is someone who also wants to watch, it’s not likely I’ll be able to watch stuff on the plane. Fortunately, for two of the three legs of my journey back I had no seatmate at all (Becky is returning later after visiting with a friend) so I was able to enjoy the cinematic masterpiece that is 1980’s Flash Gordon.

This is a movie I hadn’t seen in a while, and I was surprised at how much of it seemed brand new to me. For example, I had always been under the impression that Sam Jones, who plays the title character, was the worst actor in it, but that honor clearly goes to Melody (Dale Arden) Anderson!

I don’t know why this movie has such a bad rap, because it’s fantastic. It is probably the most ferociously honest movie ever made. It pulls out all the stops to give you everything you could possibly want from a movie called “Flash Gordon”. In fact, it should pause momentarily to do things like this:

SOMEONE JUST DIED AND MELTED INTO
BLACK GOO! IS THIS AWESOME (Y/N)?

It also introduced me to someone who is surely at the nexus of all things geeky, Deep Roy.

SOMEONE HAS THE NAME “DEEP ROY”!
IS THIS AWESOME (Y/N)?

Deep Roy plays Princess Aura’s “pet”, Fellini. He’s a small guy, so unsurprisingly his filmography includes a whole lot of geek. Was he in Doctor Who? Guys, he was Mr. Sin! Was he in Star Wars? He was Droopy McCool! Him and Brian Blessed probably carpool together to their geek assignments!

So, Flash Gordon! Eight hundred stars out of five! Be advised if you plan to follow my lead, though, The flights from Memphis to Detroit and then Detroit to Hartford are about 20 minutes too short to watch all of Flash Gordon, so you’ll probably want a longer layover in Detroit than what I had to make up the difference.

Flash Gordon was the first movie that I lied to my friends about in grade school. Everyone else had seen it except for me, so I had to totally love it, especially Johnny’s favorite part that he just told us about. Then when I got to a matinee of it weeks later, I was the geek who kept talking about it when it was stale for everyone else.

It’s been so long that all I can remember is at the climax when Dale Arden is waving her arms up and down while running saying “Go Flash Go!” I thought that was pretty retarded. I also have the Flash Gordon Soundtrack on vinyl and damn proud of it! FLASH! AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!

While I don’t necessarily agree that Melody Anderson is terrible, if Sam Jones comes off better it’s because his part was dubbed. Try watching him in the short-lived series “The Highwayman” (the one that costarred the Australian guy from the battery commercials), or the TV-movie version of “The Spirit.” He’s got a terrible, yokel voice.

“Flash Gordon” doesn’t even qualify as a guilty pleasure for me, because I openly and proudly love this film. Camp aside, it’s actually a relatively straightforward adaptation of the original story. Max Von Sydow is superb as Ming, and to this day I imitate that little finger-wave thing he does. Topol and Blessed are also a lot of fun. And Ornelli Muti is just amazingly hot as Princess Aura.

What I really love about it is the over-the-top production design that captures the decadent opulence of Mongo. Its depiction of outer space and the moons of Mongo is truly unique.

I am going to have to pony up for the new DVD one of these days. I have the original disc, but it’s not “enhanced for widescreen.”